[Intl-tobacco] Asia tightens ban on smoking but manufacturers unfazed

[Robert Weissman]

Asia tightens ban on smoking but manufacturers unfazed
Posted 10:05am (Mla time) May 30, 2005
By
Agence France-Presse

Asian governments are tightening anti-smoking laws around the region,
but that has not prevented giant tobacco companies from searching out
new markets.

As the world marks international No-Smoking Day Tuesday, Asian
authorities, emboldened by the successful implementation of bans in
Europe and the United States, are broadening the scope of existing curbs
and mulling wide-ranging new prohibition laws.

Manufacturers, however, continue to exploit poor health awareness in
countries like China and Indonesia, which have seen increased investment
by tobacco firms.

Asia accounts for an estimated half of the world's 1.4 billion smokers,
with the World Health Organization calculating that 50,000 teenagers
take up the habit each day.

Smoking's huge cost to national health budgets have motivated wealthy
nations such as Australia and New Zealand to implement bans on smoking
in public places.

Other nations are taking their lead. Taiwan in March, for instance, took
the first step towards an anti-smoking policy with proposed fines for
pregnant women caught lighting up.

"Once momentum is set in one country you usually find others follow,"
said Anelise Connell, vice-chairman of Hong Kong's anti-smoking Clear
the Air campaign. "The signs are good around the region."

Hong Kong moved closer to a ban when the government late last year said
it would introduce legislation to criminalize smoking in public. In
April it widened the proposal to include all indoor places.

Smoking, which is estimated to kill about 5,700 of Hong Kong's 6.9
million population every year, is already banned in cinemas, shopping
malls, supermarkets, banks and department stores.

The planned legislation has met with fierce criticism in the southern
Chinese territory, especially from the hospitality trade, which reckons
bars, restaurants, clubs and saunas would go out of business as a result.

In protest last month, scores of clubs switched off their neon signs in
protest, symbolizing the darkness the streets would be thrown into by
the bars' closure under a smoking ban.

Ban advocates welcomed the legislation and promises from operators,
including the Disney company, which has said smoking would be prohibited
in its Hong Kong theme park, due to open in September.

"There is far too much ignorance on the issue," said Clear the Air's
Connell. "But Hong Kong is in a much better position right now."

Australia's anti-smoking laws, where lighting up is already banned in
bars and restaurants, got even tougher this month when the powerful
anti-smoking lobby and its consumer watchdog forced two of the country's
three largest tobacco firms to drop the terms "light" and "mild" from
their products after lengthy negotiations.

Laws making tobacco companies place large, graphic pictures of diseased
body parts caused by smoking-related illness on cigarette packets will
also come into force later this year.

Despite gripes from some bar operators over a ban introduced in
neighboring New Zealand in December, the public appears to have welcomed
the move. A survey by UMR Research in April showed support has risen 13
percentage points in five months to nearly 70 percent, and support among
smokers rose 20 percentage points to 42 percent.

"Before bars went smokefree ... people weren't quite sure what to
expect. But now it is clear to everyone that smokefree bars are no big
deal," said Asthma and Respiratory Foundation executive director Jane
Patterson.

Despite advances, two of Asia's largest smoking nations -- China and
Indonesia -- are increasingly seen by cigarette manufacturers as among
the last hopes for their ailing industry.

China has about 350 million smokers, some 36 percent of its population
of 1.3 billion and 70 percent of all men.

Awareness about its health impact is extremely low; about a million
people die each year from smoking-related illnesses.

While Beijing has signed, but has yet to ratify, the Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control, which came into force in March, change is
likely to be slow as some provinces, such as Yunnan, rely on the
majority of their government revenue from tobacco profit.

Meanwhile, smoking in public was banned in Jakarta in February, but 70
percent of Indonesia's 213 million people are smokers, with 57,000
deaths each year attributed to smoking-related illnesses.

Its cigarette companies have long been stock market leaders, and this
year attracted a 5.2 billion dollar investment from US cigarette giant
Philip Morris, which took control of the country's third biggest
manufacturer Sampoerna.

Sampoerna, along with rivals Djarum and Gudang Garam, mainly produce
"kretek," a pungent clove cigarette that rivals, if not exceeds, the
health hazards posed by standard tobacco products.

In a move that may discourage some smokers, Indonesia plans to increase
cigarette prices by up to 20 percent in July, although the measure is
aimed at filling government coffers more than improving public health.